Two-party system
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A two-party system is a
In such systems, while chances for third-party candidates winning election to major national office are remote, it is possible for groups within the larger parties, or in opposition to one or both of them, to exert influence on the two major parties.[7][8][9][10][11][12] In contrast, in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia and in other parliamentary systems and elsewhere, the term two-party system is sometimes used to indicate an arrangement in which two major parties dominate elections but in which there are viable third parties or independents that do win some seats in the legislature, and in which the two major parties exert proportionately greater influence than their percentage of votes would suggest. Explanations for why a political system with free elections may evolve into a two-party system have been debated. A leading theory, referred to as Duverger's law, states that two parties are a natural result of a winner-take-all voting system.
Generally, a two-party system becomes a dichotomous division of the political spectrum with an ostensibly
Other parties in these countries may have seen candidates elected to local or subnational office.[13]
Europe
Malta
Malta is somewhat unusual in that while the electoral system is single transferable vote (STV), traditionally associated with proportional representation, minor parties have not had much success. Politics is dominated between the centre-left Labour Party and the centre-right Nationalist Party, with no third parties winning seats in Parliament between 1962 and 2017 and since 2022.[14]
Russia
Post-Soviet Russia was close to having a competitive two-party system in 1999 when two "parties of power" (specifically, socio-political associations and parliamentary factions) were formed in the 3rd State Duma - Unity and Fatherland – All Russia. However, by the end of 2001, both had united into one pro-presidential party - United Russia.
On 24 March 2006, a meeting was held between the deputy head of the presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov, and the chairman of the Russian Party of Life, Sergey Mironov, and 30 deputies from the Russian Party of Life. At the meeting, Surkov first openly formulated the idea of building a two-party system in the country, in which, depending on the circumstances, the Kremlin could rely on one of the two system-forming parties.[15] Surkov described the problem as follows: "Society does not have a "second leg" that it can shift to when the first one goes numb. Russia needs a second major party," which, according to the presidential administration's plan, should, in the future, gain the votes that are currently collected by parties "of a leftist bias and with a strong nationalist flavor." At the same time, Surkov left the role of the "main leg" for the coming years to United Russia: "The largest party, around which the political process will be built for a considerable time, in my opinion, of course, should be United Russia." Vladislav Surkov advised Russian Party of Life activists to rely on the protest electorate rather than on administrative resources: "It is better that this [protest] electorate, which is opposed to all types of administration, will be attracted to you than to destructive forces." A transcript of the meeting was published on 16 August 2006.[15][16]
The
However, as a result of the fact that during the Duma elections of 2007, Putin politically headed the United Russia party, which won an absolute victory in the elections, by the end of 2007, a dominant-party system had emerged in Russia, in which United Russia has a constitutional qualified majority in the Duma.
Spain
A report in
United Kingdom
In countries such as
North America
Canada
Caribbean
The
United States
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2019) |
The United States has two dominant political parties; historically, there have been few instances in which third party candidates won an election. In the First Party System, only Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Party and Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party were significant political parties. Toward the end of the First Party System, the Democratic-Republicans were dominant (primarily under the Presidency of James Monroe).
Under the
In 1854 began the
During the Fourth Party System from about 1896 to 1932, the Republicans remained the dominant Presidential party, although Democrats Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson were both elected to two terms.
The
There was a significant change in U.S. politics in 1960,[19] and this is seen by some as a transition to a sixth party system.
Since the mid-1960s, despite a couple of landslides (such as Richard Nixon carrying 49 states and 61% of the popular vote over George McGovern in 1972; Ronald Reagan carrying 49 states and 58% of the popular vote over Walter Mondale in 1984), Presidential elections have been competitive between the predominant Republican and Democratic parties and no one party has been able to hold the Presidency for more than three consecutive terms.
In the 2012 United States presidential election, only 4% separated the popular vote between Barack Obama (51%) and Mitt Romney (47%), although Obama won the electoral vote (332–206).
Throughout every American party system, no third party has won a Presidential election or majorities in either house of Congress. Despite that, third parties and third party candidates have gained traction and support. In the election of
Modern
Some parts of the US have had their own party systems, distinct from the rest of the country.
- In Project Dignity.
- In Guam, the Popular Party was the only political party from 1949-1954, and was dominant until 1967 when they became affiliated with the Democrats. Since then, the Democrats and Republicans have been the two main parties.
- In the Northern Mariana Islands, the Democrats and Republicans are the two main parties but as recently as 2013, the Governor was a member of the Covenant Party.
- In American Samoa, the American Samoa Fono (territorial legislature) is non-partisan, and on ballots only candidate names are displayed, not political parties. The Governor has typically been either Democrat or Republican.
- In the US Virgin Islands, the Democrats and Republicans have been the main two parties, but two Governors during the 1970s were part of the Independent Citizens Movement, and from 2015-2019 the Governor was an independent.
Africa
Ghana
The Republic of Ghana since its transition to democracy in 1992 have a strongly institutionalized two-party system led by New Patriotic Party and National Democratic Congress.[23]
Zimbabwe
The
Australia
House of Representatives
Since the 1920s, the
Since the end of World War II, Australia's House of Representatives has been dominated by two factions:
- the centre-left Australian Labor Party
- the centre-right Coalition.
The Coalition has been in government about two-thirds of time, broken by 4 periods of Labor governments: 1972-1975, 1983-1996, 2007-2013, and since 2022.
The ALP is Australia's largest and oldest continuing political party, formed in 1891 from the Australian labour movement. The party has branches in every state and territory.
The Coalition is a near-permanent alliance of several parties, primarily the Liberal Party of Australia (Australia's 2nd largest party) and National Party of Australia (4th largest). It was formed after the 1922 Australian federal election, when the Nationalist Party (ancestor of today's Liberal Party) lost its absolute majority, and was only able to remain in government by allying with the Country Party (now called the National Party). Under the Coalition agreement, if the Coalition forms government then the Prime Minister will be the leader of the Liberals, and the Deputy Prime Minister will be the leader of the Nationals. In theory, disagreements between the Coalition's constituent parties would lead to the Coalition being broken. However, the last time that this has happened at the federal level was in 1939-1940.
One reason for Australia's two-party system is because the House of Representatives (which chooses the Prime Minister of Australia) is elected through the instant-runoff voting electoral system. Although voters can preference third parties and independents above the major parties, and the voting method has a reduced spoiler effect, there is still only one member per electoral division (ie: a winner-take-all system) and so major parties tend to win the vast majority of seats even if they need to rely on preferences to do so. For example, a Labor candidate may win a seat with 30% of the vote for Labor and 21% from Australian Greens voters who ranked Labor second.
Senate
On the other hand, the
Some Australian states have seen the rise of minor parties at either the state or federal level (eg: Centre Alliance in South Australia, Katter's Australian Party in northern Queensland, and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party in western New South Wales), while some have seen long periods of dominance by one party. Some parties are absent entirely in parts of the country.
- The Liberals(Nationals not present). Labor was in government alone from 2001-2012.
- Notably, the ACT is the only state/territory where the Greens have been in power.
- In the Labor and the Country Liberal Party(CLP), which aligns with the Coalition at the federal level.
- In crossbench.
- In Victoria, the main parties reflect the situation nationally: Labor versus the Coalition of the Liberals and Nationals. NSW is the only state where the Coalition has never split, but has also never merged into one party.
- In South Australia and Tasmania, the main parties are Labor and the Liberals, with the Nationals not holding any seats.
- In Queensland Police to suppress political dissent, and enacted the Bjelkemander, worsening malapportionment in order to reduce the power of the Liberals so his Country Party could rule alone. Eventually, media reports and the Fitzgerald Inquiryrevealed wide-ranging corruption police and government. Bjelke-Petersen was forced to resign in disgrace, while many high-ranking police and politicians were criminally charged. Labor has been in power for most the time since then, with the state Country and Liberal parties merging into the LNP, which is a member of the Coalition federally.
Latin America
Most Latin American countries also have
As in other regions, the original rivalry between liberals and conservatives was overtaken by a rivalry between
The traditional two-party dynamic started to break after a while, especially in the early 2000s; alternative parties won elections breaking the traditional two-party systems including
Asia
Lebanon
The
South Korea
South Korea has a multi-party system[28] that has sometimes been described as having characteristics of a two-party system.[29] Parties will have reconstructions based upon its leader, but the country continues to maintain two major parties. Currently these parties are the liberal Democratic Party of Korea and the conservative People Power Party.
South America
Brazil
During the imperial period, since 1840, two great parties with a national base alternated its dominance between legislatures: the Liberal and the Conservative. These parties were dissolved in 1889, after the republic was instituted in Brazil, in which the registration of party directories came under the jurisdiction of the states.
Comparison with other systems
Two-party systems can be contrasted with:
- Multi-party systems. In these, the effective number of parties is greater than two but usually fewer than five; in a two-party system, the effective number of parties is two (according to one analysis, the actual average number of parties varies between 1.7 and 2.1).[32] The parties in a multi-party system can control government separately or as a coalition; in a two-party system, coalition governments rarely form. Nations with multi-party systems include Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Ukraine, Spain, Sweden and Thailand.
- freedom of press are at least partly preserved. Examples of this type are the People's Action Party of Singapore, the African National Congress of South Africa, the SWAPO in Namibia, and United Russia in Russia.
- One-party systems happen in nations where no more than one party is codified in law and/or officially recognized, or where alternate parties are restricted by the dominant party which wields power. Examples are rule by the Chinese Communist Party, Workers' Party of Korea, Communist Party of Vietnam, and Communist Party of Cuba.
Causes
There are several reasons why, in some systems, two major parties dominate the political landscape. There has been speculation that a two-party system arose in the
Political scientists such as
The main reason for America's majoritarian character is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as
Duverger's Law. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections.— Sachs, The Price of Civilization, 2011[35]
Consider a system in which voters can vote for any candidate from any one of many parties. Suppose further that if a party gets 15% of votes, then that party will win 15% of the seats in the legislature. This is termed proportional representation or more accurately as party-proportional representation. Political scientists speculate that proportional representation leads logically to multi-party systems, since it allows new parties to build a niche in the legislature:
Because even a minor party may still obtain at least a few seats in the legislature, smaller parties have a greater incentive to organize under such electoral systems than they do in the United States.
— Schmidt, Shelley, Bardes (2008)[1]
In contrast, a voting system that allows only a single winner for each possible legislative seat is sometimes termed a
In the U.S., forty-eight states have a standard winner-takes-all electoral system for amassing presidential votes in the
Duverger concluded that "plurality election single-ballot procedures are likely to produce two-party systems, whereas proportional representation and runoff designs encourage multipartyism."
Gary Cox suggested that America's two-party system was highly related with economic prosperity in the country:
The bounty of the American economy, the fluidity of American society, the remarkable unity of the American people, and, most important, the success of the American experiment have all mitigated against the emergence of large dissenting groups that would seek satisfaction of their special needs through the formation of political parties.
— Cox, according to George Edwards[34]
An effort in 2012 by centrist groups to promote ballot access by third-party candidates called Americans Elect spent $15 million to get ballot access but failed to elect any candidates.[38] The lack of choice in a two-party model in politics has often been compared to the variety of choices in the marketplace.
Politics has lagged our social and business evolution ... There are 30 brands of Pringles in our local grocery store. How is it that Americans have so much selection for potato chips and only two brands – and not very good ones – for political parties?
— Scott Ehredt of the Centrist Alliance[11]
Third parties
Third parties, meaning a party other than one of the two dominant parties, are possible in two-party systems, but they are often unlikely to exert much influence by gaining control of legislatures or by winning elections.[1] While there are occasional opinions in the media expressed about the possibility of third parties emerging in the United States, for example, political insiders such as the 1980 presidential candidate John Anderson think the chances of one appearing in the early twenty-first century is remote.[39] A report in The Guardian suggested that American politics has been "stuck in a two-way fight between Republicans and Democrats" since the Civil War, and that third-party runs had little meaningful success.[40]
Third parties in a two-party system can be:
- Built around a particular ideology or interest group
- Split off from one of the major parties or
- Focused on a charismatic individual.[39]
When third parties are built around an ideology which is at odds with the majority mindset, many members belong to such a party not for the purpose of expecting electoral success but rather for personal or psychological reasons.
A so-called third party in the United Kingdom were historically the Liberal Democrats, prior to the Scottish National Party taken its place since the 2015 election by number of the House of Common seats. In the 2010 election, the Liberal Democrats received 23% of the votes but only 9% of the seats in the House of Commons. While electoral results do not necessarily translate into legislative seats, the Liberal Democrats can exert influence if there is a situation such as a hung parliament. In this instance, neither of the two main parties (at present, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party) have sufficient authority to run the government. Accordingly, the Liberal Democrats can in theory exert tremendous influence in such a situation since they can ally with one of the two main parties to form a coalition. This happened in the Coalition government of 2010. The two party system in the United Kingdom allows for other parties to exist, although the main two parties tend to dominate politics; in this arrangement, other parties are not excluded and can win seats in Parliament. In contrast, the two party system in the United States has been described as a duopoly or an enforced two-party system, such that politics is almost entirely dominated by either the Republicans or Democrats, and third parties rarely win seats in Congress.[44]
Advantages
Some historians have suggested that two-party systems promote centrism and encourage political parties to find common positions which appeal to wide swaths of the electorate. It can lead to political stability
Disadvantages
Two-party systems have been criticized for downplaying alternative views,[3][4] being less competitive,[7] median voter theorem, encouraging voter apathy since there is a perception of fewer choices,[3] and putting a damper on debate[4] within a nation. In a proportional representation system, lesser parties can moderate policy since they are not usually eliminated from government.[3] One analyst suggested the two-party approach may not promote inter-party compromise but may encourage partisanship.[4] In The Tyranny of the Two-party system, Lisa Jane Disch criticizes two-party systems for failing to provide enough options since only two choices are permitted on the ballot. She wrote:
Herein lies the central tension of the two–party doctrine. It identifies
citizens to accept two–party contests as a condition of electoral democracy.— Lisa Jane Disch, 2002[47]
There have been arguments that the winner-take-all mechanism discourages independent or third-party candidates from running for office or promulgating their views.
Political analyst A. G. Roderick, writing in his book Two Tyrants, argued that the two American parties (the Republican Party and the Democratic Party) were highly unpopular (as of 2015), are not part of the political framework of state governments, and do not represent the 47% of the electorate who identify themselves as "independents".
Others have accused two party systems of encouraging an environment which stifles individual thought processes and analysis. In a two party system, knowledge about political leaning facilitates assumptions to be made about an individual's opinions on a wide variety of topics (e.g.
"The more destructive problem is the way this skews the discussion of the issues facing the nation. The media – meaning news sources from Fox News to the New York Times and everything in between – seem largely incapable of dealing with any issue outside of the liberal versus conservative paradigm. Whether it's dealing with ISIS, the debt ceiling, or climate change
History
British parties
The two-party system, in the sense of the looser definition, where two parties dominate politics but in which third parties can elect members and gain some representation in the legislature, can be traced to the development of political parties in the
The basic matters of principle that defined the struggle between the two factions, were concerning the nature of
Vigorous struggle between the two factions characterised the period from the
British emergence
The old Whig leadership dissolved in the 1760s into a decade of factional chaos with distinct "
A genuine two-party system began to emerge,
The two-party system matured in the early 19th century
American
Although the
Partisan politics revived in 1829 with the split of the Democratic-Republican Party into the
See also
- Duverger's law
- False dichotomy
- Multi-party system
- Dominant-party system
- One-party state
- Political organisation
Notes
- ^ Note: in the politics of Australia, there are not two political parties but rather "two major political groupings"; for further information, see the Australian Coalition.
References
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...and another $15 million has gone toward its most valuable asset: ballot access. Americans Elect has secured a ballot line in 26 states..
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...only about eight percent of Americans feel confident in our partisan Congress ... 47 percent of Americans ... identify as independents. ...
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- ^ Harris, Tim Restoration:Charles II and His Kingdoms 1660–1685 Allen Lane (2005) p. 241
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- ^ Melinda S. Zook, "The Restoration Remembered: The First Whigs and the Making of their History", Seventeenth Century, Autumn 2002, Vol. 17 Issue 2, pp. 213–34
- ISBN 978-1412840293. Archivedfrom the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
- ^ "ConHome op-ed: the USA, Radical Conservatism and Edmund Burke". Archived from the original on October 20, 2013. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
- ^ Frank O'Gorman (1982). The Emergence of the British Two-Party System, 1760–1832. Holmes & Meier Publishers, Incorporated.
- ^ "The History of Political Parties in England (1678–1914)". Archived from the original on October 20, 2013. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
- ^ Parliamentary History, xxiv, 213, 222, cited in Foord, His Majesty's Opposition, 1714–1830, p. 441
- ^ Ellen Wilson and Peter Reill, Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (2004) p. 298
- ISBN 978-1134349272. Archivedfrom the original on October 2, 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
- ^ Washington's Farewell Address
- ^ Richard Hofstadter, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (1970)
- ^ William Nisbet Chambers, ed. The First Party System (1972)
- .
External links
- Dunleavy, Patrick, "Duverger's Law is a dead parrot. Outside the USA, first-past-the-post voting has no tendency at all to produce two party politics", June 18, 2012, British Politics and Policy at LSE